Grand Theft Auto V Patch 1.08 Appears To Downgrade Visuals On PS4

Grand Theft Auto V is a really good looking game. When it launched on this generation of consoles, making the jump from last generation machines, everyone was impressed with what Rockstar had managed to do.

Compare that to now, after patch 1.08 on PS4, and it seems as though there’s a different story to tell: while it still looks good, there are some key effects missing or reduced from the 1.00 version, as shown in the video below.

It’s an odd situation, but the car collisions seem pretty conclusive as far as evidence goes – there’s a clear difference with the damage to the hood on the car. What’s even stranger is the fact that some parts – such as the foliage – actually looks better in the post-1.08 version.

Quite why the game has been “downgraded” is hard to tell – Rockstar could be tweaking the game so that it runs better in certain areas with the new content, or it could even just be a side effect of cross-generation development of the patches, or even just a mistake on their part.

What we do know is, thanks to the first person camera view, that this is definitely the current generation version of the game.

UPDATE: Patch 1.09 has now been released (thanks, Jimster71) and we’re going to look to see whether it has fixed any of these visual issues.

UPDATE 2: Following the 1.09 update, after testing by TSA, these issues do not appear to have been fixed. The texture pop-in is quite prevalent and, while harder to test for, car deformation still doesn’t seem to be as good as shown pre-patch in the video. Here are a few images showing the lack of parallax occlusion mapping where it was before, taken in the same places as in the video:

So they promised us a next gen version and clearly shown in videos the game running on PS4 and now we’ve all bought it they downgrade the game so it’s more like the Ps3 version? Minus the first person mode.

Seeing as the frame-rate has been holding up very well, I can only assume they’re either having trouble with a few bits of code or (like the deformation on the bonnet of the car), it’s more a designer choice with regards to how it looks.

Weird to see what’s happening, though. Oh, well. It’s still stunning and heists are a pure joy.

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